Good morning! Are you up yet? What's your plans for today?

[Sqrl Klr]

Brett I feel you! You guys catch any grub for tonight? I think tomorrow I may take off too. Simple and fairly quick job on my mother's mower turned into an absolute quagmire. Thought I just needed to change the drive belt but turns out it's fine and the two tension pulleys need replacing. God I hope the shop has them in stock so I don't have to wait over a week for them to ship. I need to bring some tools from my home to hers so I can complete the job. Got one pulley off but not the other. Discovered the left transmission is leaking fluid too so I need to find the leak source. If it ain't one thing it's another. Aggravating mess. Time for a beer and a swim. 

[avator]

Picked the 360z zturn up from Mike the mower guy this evening. I think I'll mow the barn property with it tomorrow to give it a good try out. I did mow our yard with it when I got it home but that only takes about 10 minutes. Not really enough for a good assessment.

[Blowpipe Sam]

I Need to sit down on the dock and fish for catfish tonight.  The yellow flies are pretty much done so this would be a good evening for it.  I'll sweat a bucket doing it though.

The river Otters wiped out the fish pond population so I have to fish the river.  Not so bad if there is a breeze but there ain't a breath of wind tonight.  I'll psych myself up to it eventually.

[Jshooter71]

Good morning GTA! Happy Thursday! I got up at 0430 without the alarm this morning. I didn’t even need to, but I like not being in a rush in the morning… Today I have a helper meeting me at a job with 4 rooftop units. We need to replace all the condensate pans and run new traps & drains. It really should be a low stress day with not a whole lot to figure out.

[avator]

Mornin' y'all...
I got up at 4:30 and made coffee. At the butt crack of daylight I went out, opened up the shop and turned the compressor on. I aired up all the tires on the zturn, checked the oil and headed down the dirt road to the barn.
The grass was pretty wet but the little motor that could plowed right through.. until it didn't.     Ran out of gas. 
I walked back to the house, grabbed my wallet and gas can and went to the gas station.
I finished the mowing, brought the mower home and walked back to the barn to get the truck.
Next time I think I'll wait until later in the day so the grass dries but it was a good working test for the motor swap. This motor is going to be just fine. Especially since I'll only be using it for our small area.
Next on the list is to get it all cleaned up and put away. Then I'm going to order new plugs and an air cleaner filter. The blades and belts are good to go.

[Rabbit\Squirrel Killer]

Good Morning. I got up at 6:00 AM today.
John I hope your day goes as easy as it played out in your head this morning. Bill I hate when I run out of gas with the mower, our newest one has a working gas gauge but I have pushed the limit too far or forgotten to look at it too.

It's 67°F and I plan on getting the new gate wheels installed as soon as I get finished downing my coffee. I am not sure what else I will do other than stay inside mostly, it is supposed to get to 105°F in Hemet today. My wife has her stitching group to go to so, I probably will do a lot of reading. I might clean/dust my book shelves?

 Yesterday I replaced the Batteries in my UPS (Uninterruptable Power Supply) in my office. I had to order the batteries and it took about a week to get them. Now I will have the maximum time to react to a power outage. The LED display on it says I have 64 minutes of battery backup, the Power Panel software says 57 minutes, not sure why there different. It doesn't matter if/when the power goes off I shut the desktop computer down and that will give me plenty of time to do that. I try to just use the battery backup for my internet router, modem and office led light bulb, it will power those for a long time.
 
  Well I need to go get the gate wheels on while it is not hot and is in the shade. The hardest part of that job is reaching them since near/on the ground since my back doesn't like bending. Oh, well I CAN do it! I'll just have extra pain for a while. 

[Rabbit\Squirrel Killer]

Done, I took a low step stool to set on and my electric impact with the correct socket. I left the old brackets and just put the new wheels and axle bolts on. My wife always is the one opening and closing the gate and she had just told me that it had gotten harder, the bearings on both wheels are completely frozen up.

At 7:17 AM it is 74°F and 56% humidity out it, NICE!, for now

[anti-squirrel]

Bill- happy to hear the new engine is working for ya   If you have ethanol-free gas, that's ideal.  But between you, me, and the grass, as long as you don't let the gas sit over a season, it will be fine.  I finish every season with a tank-full of ethanol-free gas, but all season long, I'll use whatever is cheaper.

OTHERWISE... Another work day for me.  Sonja is heading to town for groceries and a building permit for our shop. 

I completed work for a customer going live on our new software this week, and our guy on-site at last week's customer (training follows the GoLive by a week) reported the customer that went live last week gave us the wrong database with the newest work dating from February... so we got their newest database- I checked the dates, and they sent us the same dang database. ALL STOP! So, last night just before 5 we were able to get a valid database containing current info.  I started working on it last night and now I'm checking the results. 

It galls me that well-paid professionals in a municipality's IT can repeat doofus-mistakes multiple times without repercussions, but this is the world we live in.  Either way, the work has to happen, and I'm getting paid.

Other plans: burgers on the grill for dinner, maybe a margarita for an after-dinner treat, and perhaps some springer/CO2 airgun action.  We closed last night on selling the house so we are now mortgage free.  I have literally 4 years and 26 weeks to retirement.  No mortgage, no car payments... Life ain't so bad, ya know?

[avator]

Peter, if I can offer any advise it would be to stop counting the days until retirement. That seems to just make the time go much slower.   

[Rabbit\Squirrel Killer]

85°F at 8:08 AM temp is rising fast!

[maraudinglizard]

Peter, if I can offer any advise it would be to stop counting the days until retirement. That seems to just make the time go much slower.   

+1  Just keep on working and getting all your ducks in a row and then worry about retirement on the day you tell them bye bye.

[Madd Hatter]

Going to be heading to the hospital in an hour.

[Rabbit\Squirrel Killer]

Our hourly forecast said it would be 83°F at 9:00 and it is already 90°F at 8:30 AM, that's not looking good for the forecast high. I am pretty certain now, we will exceed the forecast 105°F today.

[Ronfiveo]

"It galls me that well-paid professionals in a municipality's IT can repeat doofus-mistakes multiple times without repercussions, but this is the world we live in.  Either way, the work has to happen, and I'm getting paid."

These same office holders will most likely fail upwards to a higher position where they can muck that up as well.
No one seems to take pride in their work these days. They seem to forget, they work for me and not the other
way around.

I can't remember why you are going into the hospital , Robert, but good luck and God is with you.

Ron

[Madd Hatter]

Thank you. Skin cancer surgery.

[Lt. Dan]

Best wishes Robert, been there. Hopefully they can get it all.

[Lt. Dan]

Up at 5:20 this morning. After breakfast I loaded up the mower and string trimmer headed off to cut my wife's aunt's yard then our younger daughter's yard. While there I offered to drive my granddaughter to band camp.

Started home, halfway home there is a service station that has ethanol-free gasoline.  The BAD BOY ZT has a full tank now.

There was a dead pine with two trunks that had died last year. In the spring one of the trunks split off falling toward my drive and hanging up at a 45° lean.

 The split was above my shoulder level so I decided to let nature take its course. Well now the trunk and all the limbs are completely dead but the trunk is still attached to the other trunk and the top is only four feet of the ground.

After I unloaded the Z turn I loaded my chainsaw onto my ATV and drove down my 600' drive and cut that trunk at shoulder lever and it fell to the ground. It was so dry cutting that 8" trunk was like cutting lumber. I cut the limbs off and dragged most of them to our burn pile with my ATV taking three trips.
 I've cut the rest up in 6' lengths. I got HOT, not a dry thread. Drove back to the shed, parked the ATV, put the chainsaw up, pulled the Z turn into the shop and pulled the roll up door down.

Enough for today. Grab a shower and rest. Did I say it was hot out?

I'll address the still standing dead pine tree at another time. It's about 14" at the base.
If it falls South it will hit the mail power line, if it fall West it will hit the feeder line that supplies our power.  I'm pretty good at felling trees but this one is leaning South I'll need some help.

[Ronfiveo]

Thank you. Skin cancer surgery.

*prayers*

Ron

[avator]

Hope all goes well, Robert.

[Blowpipe Sam]

Good luck Robert!

Up at the crack of noon!  Day three of my five day mental health sabbatical.  I didn’t intend to sleep so late but Im not getting to sleep until four or five a.m.  I’m keeping “artist hours” again.

Plans for today are for more of the same.  Both compressors are set up with moisture traps, regulators and airbrush hoses.  One compressor is for the Badgers and my old Thayer Chandler.  The other is set up to run my Pasche’s and Iwata’s.  If the humidity is low enough I’m going to work on a couple of paintings.  Acrylic, not lacquers, so hopefully the humidity won’t be a problem.

I don’t like to post photos of my finished art unless it has a copy write so you won’t see any of it here.  Eventually I’ll post a link to the published art that y’all can look at if you want.